


Flowers in my lungs

by DecayingLiberty



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hanahaki Disease, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Injury, M/M, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18751048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecayingLiberty/pseuds/DecayingLiberty
Summary: There are flowers growing in Courfeyrac's chest and he can't breathe.





	Flowers in my lungs

**Author's Note:**

> _The Hanahaki Disease is a fictional illness born from unrequited love, where the patient’s throat will fill up with flower, they will then proceed to throw, and cough up the petals, (sometimes even the flowers)._

_“I don't know where to go."_

_"Come to my place, sir," said Courfeyrac._

 

* * *

 

Courfeyrac remembers that moment well.

They have been outside the Musain where he and Bossuet have agreed to meet after the lecture but upon arrival, Courfeyrac had found his friend in conversation with a seemingly distressed stranger wearing an even more distressed coat and hat. When Courfeyrac caught the end of the conversation, he promptly invited the stranger home.

He has not been thinking in this moment and that has been his first mistake.

 

* * *

 

Later, when Pontmercy has settled into the room next to his, when the day has started to come to a close after hours with talking and introducing, Courfeyrac makes his way back to the Musain, where he and Bossuet spend an evening in each other’s company, dining and drinking, as they usually do. 

It is a pleasant evening. The sun has long disappeared between the buildings and sunken beneath the horizon, patrons have been filing in for their last meals, workers and vendors are closing up their shops. Paris at day was coming to a rest, and the night was slowing raising its head.

Bossuet and Courfeyrac’s conversation have derailed from the matters they have meant to discuss for a while now. Instead they are talking of other mundane matters, such as the wine or the maids’ new skirts or the too earnest booby of a person that is Marius Pontmercy. There is crying and laughter, so much that soon they soon escalate into a coughing fit. It is like a stone deep in his chest that seemed to try and lodge itself free. When the coughing stops Courfeyrac finds his hand covered in several white petals.

He meets Bossuet’s eyes who seems more amused than anything, upon seeing the white petals on Courfeyrac’s palm, he opens his own, presenting also a single white petal, identical in build in texture to the ones that Courfeyrac is holding.

“My, my, our new friend was indeed lovely,” Bossuet laughs. “You seem quite smitten.”

Courfeyrac scoffs. “Be quiet, Lesgles,” he says, as he blushes faintly and clears his throat.

It is not the first time such a thing has happened, still it is unusual for him. Courfeyrac is not one to be charmed easily. In most cases, his comapnions are the ones being charmed by him which has proved to be useful on numerous occasions. 

He can not fathom what about Pontmercy that has enchanted him so.

Courfeyrac shakes his head and with that they continue their conversation, about amusing occurrences and jokes, almost forgetting about the flowers until once again, Courfeyrac’s laughter turns into a cough.

There are no petals this time but Bossuet rubs his back in a soothing manner and hands him a glass of water.

“Here, drink some,” he says. “It might be best to retire for today. It seems we both have quite a condition to work through.”

“Are you worried?” Courfeyrac asks.

“Worried?” Bossuet shakes his head. “No, this will pass. As you know, I am a notorious cougher.” He grins. “What about you?”

“It will pass,” Courfeyrac reassures him. “I barely know Pontmercy.”

And so they raise their glasses and drink to it.

 

* * *

 

The petals do not stop. The intervals in which they come seem to be shorter with every time he has an encounter with Pontmercy. Sometimes they ease up, other times, like the time Pontmercy has disappeared for three months and Courfeyrac has worried (not that he would admit it out loud) they increase slightly. But altogether, the petals have kept themselves to a feasible status.

And that is his second mistake: thinking he could shake those feelings off, thinking they would go away on their own.

This thought proves foolish, when Pontmercy invites him to an evening with dinner and a visit to the opera afterwards. Pontmercy has been in high spirits then, insisting on spending money for them even though he could barely afford to, and Courfeyrac has let him, too stunned and too ridiculously delighted by these simple gestures that he almost forgets the reason for why this is a mistake. It is not until Pontmercy leans back into his chair, smiling and grinning and sighing dreamily and declared that he is love, prompting a piercing sharp pain to strike Courfeyrac’s heart so sudden that all the air is knocked from him, that Courfeyrac remembers that this is a dangerous endeavour.

And Courfeyrac is right.

That night, when he is in his room, half dressed, he can feel the first stem growing around his heart.

 

* * *

 

The flowers keep coming. They do not stop and Courfeyrac wishes they would stop, even for just a moment, just so he could have a small moment of rest. The floor of his room is covered in petals, blue and white and yellow and red, and there are so many of them that he has lost count of them. He has lost count of the hours he has spent in his room, coughing and coughing again, lying on his side and clutching his chest out of fear the stems and tendrils will tear him apart.

He still goes to the Musain, still attends to his duties with the ABC because no one can know. They must not know. There are more important matters to tend to and if Courfeyrac keeps this to himself, it will be one less problem his friends will have to worry about.

He does well for the first months. Those months are frequented with irregular moments in which he encounters Pontmercy. Those instances ease the pain and the petals for their duration but the moment Pontmercy disappears out of his sight, they come back viciously, like they have been waiting, like they have been dammed and are now spilling out all at once. Courfeyrac finds himself in the floor for most of these instances, coughing and trying to will his feelings to finally die down.

 

* * *

 

The night Marius Pontmercy stands on his doorstep dishevelled and confused, asking for a place to sleep, Courfeyrac makes his third mistake by dragging a spare mattress and onto the floor and saying “There” and thus agreeing to let Marius share quarters with him. He holds up well he first few days, for Marius is busy and too focused on his work to really take note of Courfeyrac and Courfeyrac is very grateful for that as he discreetly lets the petals disappear.

Pontmercy does not notice... or if he does, he is tactful enough not to mention it.

And then, the evening Marius comes home after being out for a while, looking utterly lovestruck and drunk on bliss, the piercing pain in Courfeyrac’s chest increases tenfold, leaving him writhing on his bed and biting his pillow as to not wake Marius with his pained groans. In that night, he finds the first drops of blood in his palm and a stem that has broken through his skin.

When Marius leaves in the morning, Courfeyrac gets dressed, cleans up the petals and drags himself outside, with an aching chest and a laboured breath, and purple flower petals that taste like bitter poison. He is not sure where has planned to go but he finds himself knocking on a door and that’s how Bossuet finds him, propped up against the frame and doubled over, tired and bleeding.

“I— I did not know any other place to go to,” Courfeyrac says as exhaustion darkens his vision.

When Courfeyrac wakes up in an unknown bed, there are bandages around his torso, and next to him, bloodstained yet neatly trimmed stems and petals, and Bossuet looking at him with a worried frown.

“How are you feeling?

Courfeyrac is to exhausted to speak for his entire body aches, so he shrugs his shoulders and hopes that the pain will vanish if he lies still enough. Bossuet gently helps him up and changes his bandages, firmly at first then gentler when Courfeyrac flinches away in pain.  

Courfeyrac does not say a word while Bossuet fills the silence with inane chatter.

  

* * *

 

The lights are dancing in front of his eyes. Courfeyrac thinks he might faint but he blinks against the candlelight and tries to focus on Combeferre’s voice. Combeferre’s voice is nice, he thinks, calm and certain and just slow enough to calm his brain that threatens to run away from him. Courfeyrac takes a deep breath and through his breathing he can just make out the words directed at him.

“Are you feeling all right?”

Courfeyrac rubs his chest to ease the pressure building inside, the familiar itch of another cough scratching he back of his throat. There are petals in his mouth already but the bites down on them, hoping for them to be harmless and swallows. It hurts.

“I’m all right.”

“Are you sure? You seem quite off today my friend.”

“I might have caught a slight cold. Do not worry.”

Combeferre looks at him in a manner that suggests disbelief but he does not make a remark. He continues with the discussion about... Courfeyrac is not sure. A charter maybe? Resources? Workers? The words blur together, mix into garbled nonsense and it is hard to focus. It is like being pushed underwater, vaguely distinguishable but not being able to grasp the individual words and meanings. It is hard to hold the thread of the conversation and Courfeyrac feels too weak to try.

He is tired. His entire body aches.

There’s another cough building up in Courfeyrac’s throat and a wet patch on his back where the bandages where placed and he knows it will not go well for him should he remain here.

“I have changed my mind. I would like to retire for today as not to further worsen this cold.”

Deep breaths. Breathing hurts. Everything hurts. But he pushes himself up nonetheless, and with a quick “Excuse me” he walks swiftly to the door with just enough composure to last until he has left the Musain entirely.

He turns into an alley and lets the coughs he has been holding go, petals spill onto the ground, white and blue and purple, and it’s almost pretty, Courfeyrac thinks, how they look against the dark ground were it not for the unfortunate circumstance that they are stained with blood. The stems move uncomfortably beneath his skin, scraped raw and barely held together by the bandages, uncomfortably seeped through and sticky.

When the coughing fit has ended, Courfeyrac props himself up against the wall, and stumbles back to his apartment, barely holding himself upright and hoping that Marius would be out for the night.

 

* * *

 

Bossuet is sitting next to him and Courfeyrac is trying to breath through the stems and leaves that have buried themselves into his chest, trying his best to be upright, to function but every single action hurts and Bossuet is can do nothing more than to brush the hair from Courfeyrac’s pale face and clean up and redress the parts on the skin where the flowers have broken through.

“Cut them off, Lesgles, quick,” Courfeyrac says. “Enjolras has summoned me. I need to be in attendance.”

“Be quiet, Courfeyrac,” Bossuet says. “You are in no condition to go anywhere.”

“Then make it so that I can attend.”

“You are not leaving, my friend.”

“I must! Enjolras and Combeferre—”

“—will surely understand.” Bossuet pulls the bandages a bit tighter than strictly necccessary and Courfeyrac winces.

“You cannot tell them,” Courfeyrac says, “They must not know.”

“Why so?”

“They must not know.”

“Are you afraid?” Bossuet asks.

“Of what?”

“Their judgement.”

“No,” Courfeyrac says, “I know they will not judge me. It is needless worry which I can spare them.”

Bossuet looks at him for a moment, sighs and then takes the scissors to carefully remove the flowers from Courfeyrac’s back.

“This is not a solution that will last you long,” Bossuet says.

“I know.”

Bossuet does not say anything further and Courfeyrac is glad for the silence. For one, speaking requires much more than strength than he currently possesses for all his strength is taken up by being awake and upright, and for another, he has no other answer.

They sit in silence then, with Bossuet carefully applying bandages all over Courfeyrac’s torso and Courfeyrac is breathing heavily and coughing into a handkerchief that soon becomes sullied, when Bossuet suddenly asks: “What about a cure?”

Courfeyrac laughs, short, pained. “There is exactly one cure, Bossuet.”

“I know. I was thinking that maybe talking to Pontmercy will ease the pain.”

“I will not interfere with his bliss.”

Bossuet smiles, resigned. “Of course not.” He fixes up the last bandage and hands Courfeyrac his shirt and his waistcoat. “Ready?”

Courfeyrac nods. “Ready.”

He stands up from the couch, clinging to the backrest, but his lungs are protesting and his chest is aching and the lights are dancing so much that he stumbles. Bossuet catches him before he collides with the ground.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to carry me,” Courfeyrac laughs. The stems that grow through his chest, he could feel them with every breath, every movement. They have been there for a while and Courfeyrac knows them by now, knows what movements to avoid and how to breathe to decrease the pain. They are familiar somehow, comforting in a strange terrifying way.

Bossuet is not laughing. He grimly passes one of Courfeyrac’s arms around his shoulders and together they stumble to the door.

 

* * *

 

On the barricade, in the quiet after the first attack, Courfeyrac finds himself in the Corinthe where the wounded are tended to, and Bossuet is there, bandaging his back, as he always does and Courfeyrac says to him: “Soon, I will not need a cure any more.”

And Bossuet tugs on the bandage a little, as he does when he knows that he cannot change Courfeyrac’s mind.

Only this time, he has no choice.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, it's 4am and I got class in four hours but I finished this before the deadline!! Say hi on [my tumblr!](https://decayingliberty.tumblr.com)


End file.
